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Commentaries and editorials

Water Under the Bridge

Compiled by Bob Duke
The Daily Astorian, March 3, 2010

From the pages of Astoria's daily newspapers

10 years ago this week - 2000

A group acting on behalf of Fort Clatsop National Memorial is prepared to buy about 60 acres of Willamette Industries land while federal officials negotiate a 1,100-acre land swap with the timber giant, a National Park Service official said.

Leaders at the memorial, which commemorates Meriwether Lewis and William Clark's winter encampment in 1805-06, want to expand the 125-acre park in time for the bicentennial of the Lewis and Clark expedition, which begins nationally in 2003. The Willamette land would protect views around a proposed 5 1/2-mile trail and asked for exclusive rights to Stagecoach Road, a county road on Clatsop Plains, for the trail.

Two of the most talked about U.S. Army Corps of Engineers projects in the region are now becoming the talk of the nation. The Columbia River channel deepening project and the four lower Snake River dams are among the top 25 most wasteful water projects in the nation, according to a report issued today in Washington, D.C., by Taxpayers for Common Sense and the National Wildlife Federation.

U.S. Coast Guard cutter Alert returned to Astoria last week with two major drug busts under its belt.

On patrol off the coast of Mexico, the Alert crews seized 2.8 tons of cocaine and 350 pounds of marijuana in late January.

The busts were the Alert's first drug seizures. The cutter in the past has focused on enforcing fishing regulations.

50 years ago - 1960

A note of appreciation is due the Oregon highway Department, which announced it would restore the 48-car ferry M.R. Chessman to the trans-Columbia run March 1.

In doing this the highway department keeps a promise made last year to the chamber of commerce that it would limit the big ferry's annual layup to two months. This promise it has kept.

The smaller ferries Tourist No. 2 and No. 3 are just inadequate to meet the traffic demands, even at the slackest mid-winter traffic period of the year.

The Port of Astoria is now in its 50th year of operation. Because of the intangible nature of its many benefits, it is difficult for the average layman to recognize the economic benefits of the port for everyone in the district.

Created in 1910 by the people of the Port of Astoria district, it is a municipal corporation embracing all of Clatsop County. The control of the port is vested in a board of commissioners, five in number, who are elected by the people of the port district and serve without compensation for a term of four years.

The port operates three marine terminals, Piers 1, 2, and 3; a 1,000,000 bushel grain elevator; two small boat mooring basins; a 20-inch hydraulic suction dredge and Clatsop airport.

As a part of its program of industrial development, in 1919 the port built a flour mill building. In 1929 the interest of the original milling company was purchased by the present occupant, the Pillsbury Company. This has proved to be one of the most important industrial assets of the port and Clatsop County, as the mill has been in continuous operation since construction providing a large payroll and furnishing a heavy and consistent tonnage movement to the port in handling the raw material inward and the finished products outward through port facilities. Millions of feet of logs and lumber have been handled over the port's terminals through the years, enabling local suppliers to be competitive with other areas throughout the world in shipping by water.

Fire that started in an upstairs bedroom of a dormitory of the Astoria Girls School gutted the entire second floor of the large two story frame building but no one was injured in the blaze, Lewis and Clark Fire Chief Eman Peterson said.

75 years ago - 1935

The month of March has arrived, a harbinger of spring, the season of growth and regeneration. Let's make it a March of progress.

Let's put new life into the community, harness up our energies for a revival of business. The time is ripe. The psychology of the public is in tune. There is no longer any question that the recovery movement is under way. The federal government's program has given the initial impetus but it is up to each community to accelerate the forward movement.

"A Song in the Kitchen" will be the theme song of the cooking school which the Astorian Budget will conduct for the housewives of Astoria in three weeks.

Miss Barbara Barton, the noted home economist who will conduct the cooking school, says, "This isn't going to be just another cooking school no, indeed. There will of course be many new and unusual ideas for planning menus, entertaining and hour management, but primarily we want to find the way to put song and laughter in the kitchen. With the help of the Astoria housewives we will hunt out and drive away all the old drudgery bugaboos that have haunted the kitchen for years."

Astoria had the unusual treat in February of a winter month that was drier than normal and at the same time warmer, official weather records reveal. Normally a winter month with less rainfall than the average can be expected to be colder than the average also, but February was an exception.


Compiled by Bob Duke
Water Under the Bridge
The Daily Astorian, March 3, 2010

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